Chapter 23

The English use the expression 'peep of day': 'the sun began to peep' says a Scotch song, Minstr. 2, 430; so the Danes have pipe frem: 'hist piper solen frem, giv Gud en lyksom dag!' says Thom. Kingo, a 17^th cent. poet (Nyerup's Danske digtek. middelalder 1, 235). Both languages now make it a separate word from 'to pipe,' Dan. 'pibe.' But, just as in the Fr. 'par son' the sound became a coming in sight, so the old meaning of 'piping' seems to have got obliterated, and a new distinction to have arisen between peep and pipe, Dan. pipe and pibe. Our Gryphius therefore is right in saying (p. m. 740), 'the moon pipes up her light.' It is the simultaneous breaking forth of light and noise in the natural phenomenon. We have the same thing in 'skreik of day' (Hunter's Hallamsh. gloss. p. 81), which can mean nothing but 'shriek'; and in the Nethl. 'kriek, krieken van den dag,' Plattd. 'de krik vam dage' for the morning twilight, the chirking (so to speak) of day, as the chirping insect is called cricket, kriek, krikel, krekel (cicada). A remarkable instance of the two meanings meeting in one word is found in the Goth. svigla (auloj ), OHG. suëkala (fistula), by the side of the AS. swegel (lux, æther), OS. suigli (lux).

Our own word anbrechen (on-break) implies a crash and a shaking, MHG. sâ dô der ander tac ûf brach (Frauend. 53. 109); (20) Engl. break (as well as rush, blush) of day. Span. 'el alva rompe.' O. Sp. 'apriessa cantan los gallos, e quieren quebrar albores,' Cid 235. 'ya quiebran los albores, e vinie la manana' 460. 'trocida es la noche, ya quiebran los albores' 1175. 'tantost con l'aube se creva' 16057. Prov. 'can lalba fo crevada,' Ferabr. 3977. This romper, quebrar, crevar (Lat. crepare) is the quivering and quaking of the air that precedes the sunrise, accompanied by a perceptible chill; and crepusculum contains the same idea. The Spaniard says also 'el alva se rie,' laughs; and the Arab 'the morning sneezes' (see Suppl.). (21)

But here the notion of Twilight, and the oldest words by which it is expressed, have to be examined more minutely.

The very first glimmer of dawn, or strictly that which precedes it, the latter end of night, is expressed by the Goth. uhtvô (ennucon ), Mk. 1, 35, OHG. uhtâ, or as N. spells it uohta, OS. uhta, AS. uhte (most freq. 'on uhtan,' Cædm. 20, 26. 289, 31. 294, 2. Cod. exon. 443, 24. 459, 17. 460, 14. 'on uhtan mid ærdæge,' Beow. 251), ON. ôtta [[last part of the night]] (Biörn says, from 3 to 6 a.m.). The root has never been explained; probably the Swiss Uchtland and Westphalian Uchte may be named from uhtâ. Closely bordering on it is the AS. œrdœg (primum tempus), Beow. 251. 2623. 5880; ON. ârdagi [[in days of yore; árdegis - early in the day]] (conf. ârdegis, mane); an OHG. êrtac or êrtago is unknown to me. Next comes the notion of diluculum, ON. dagsbrûn [[the break of day]], dagsbiarmi, dagsbirta, from brûn = ora, margo, as if supercilium, and biarmi, birta = lux: but OHG. tagarôd, tagarôt (Graff 2, 486-7); AS. dœgrêd, Cædm. 289, 27. 294, 4; MLG. dagerât, En. 1408; M. Nethl. dagheraet (Huyd. op. St. 2, 496): a compound whose last syllable is not distinctly traceable to rôt (ruber), but is perhaps allied to the rodur, röðull (coelum) on p. 699. The gender also wavers between masc. and fem. (22) We catch glimpses of a mythic personality behind, for N. in Cap. 102 translates Leucothea (the white bright goddess, a Perahta) by 'der tagerod,' and carries out the personification: 'ube der tagerod sina facchelun inzundet habe,' have kindled his torches. And in urkunden we meet with a man's name Dagharot (Falke's Trad. corb. p. 5), also a place name Wirin-tagaroth (Höfer's Zeitschr. 2, 170). When OHG. glosses put tagarôd for crepusculum, it comes of unacquainance with the Latin idiom; it can be nothing but diluculum, aurora. In O. Fr. there is a woman's name Brunmatin = dawn, Ren. 15666. 15712. 16441 [conn. with dagsbrûn, Suppl.]. The ON. has no dagsrod, but it has sôlarrod aurora, Fornm. sög. 8, 346. [Suppl. adds 'með dagrœðom,' Sæm. 24ª]. The M. Nethl. has a second term dachgrake, dagherake (fem.), graken for the night's blackness brightening into gray; so MHG. der grâwe tac, daz grâwe licht, MS. 2, 49ª, der tac wil grâwen, Wolfr. 4, 11; 'si kôs den alten jungen grâwen grîsen (tac)'; 'junc unde grâ der morgen ûf gât,' MsH. 3, 427b (see Suppl.).

After aurora follows the full morning, Goth. maúrgins, OHG. morkan, OS. morgan, ON. morgun [[morning]], strictly aurion . I suspect it has a sense allied to the day's 'breaking or bursting,' for the Goth. gamaúrgjan means to cut and shorten, like ginnen, secare (see Suppl.).

To names for the rising day stand opposed those for the sinking. For oye, oyia Ulphilas puts andanahti, the times towards night, but also seiþu (serum), as the Mod. Greeks call evening the slow, late, to bradu, and morning the swift, early, to tacu, therefore also the short (conf. gamaúrgjan). The OHG. âpant, OS. âband, AS. œfen, ON. aptan [[from behind, behind]] is of one root with aba, aftar, aptr [[back]], which expresses a falling off, a retrograde movement. The OHG. dëmar, our dämmerung, stands especially for crepusculum, and is connected with AS. dim, Lith. tamsus, Slav. temni [dark, from tma, tenebræ]. AS. œfenrîm, œfenglom crepusculum. What has peculiar interest for us, the Tagarôd above is supported by an undoubtedly personal Apantrôd, a giant of our heroic legend: Abentrôt is the brother of Ecke and Fasolt, in both of whom we recognised phenomena of the sea and air (pp. 239. 636). If day was a godlike youth, morning and evening twilight may have been conceived as the giants Tagarôd and Apantrôd (see Suppl.). (23)

To the Greeks and Romans Hwj, Aurora, was a goddess, and she is painted in the liveliest colours. She rises from the couch (ek lecewn, as our sun goes to bed, p. 740) of her husband Tithonos, Od. 5, 1; she is the early-born (hrngeneia), the rosy-fingered (rododaktuloj, Il. 1, 477); she digs her ruddy fingers into the clouds as day does his claws, p. 743; she is also called crusoqronoj golden-throned, like Hera and Artemis. The Slavs, instead of a goddess of dawn, appear to have had a god, Yutribogh (see Suppl.).

There is another belief of the Slavs and Hungarians, which, having strayed over to us, must not be passed over in silence. In Hungary dawn is called hajnal (Esth. haggo), and the watchmen there cry to one another: 'hajnal vagyon szep piros, hajnal, hajnal vagyon!' aurora est (erumpit) pulcra purpurea, aurora, aurora est. The same word heynal, eynal is in use among the Poles, who cry: 'heynal swita!' aurora lucet (Linde 1, 623). Now Dietmar of Merseburg tells us under the year 1017 (7, 50 p. 858): 'Audivi de quodam baculo, in cujus summitate manus erat, unum in se ferreum tenens circulum, quod cum pastore illius villae Silivellun (Selben near Merseb.), in quo (l. qua) is fuerat, per omnes domos has singulariter ductus, in primo introitu a portitore suo sic salutaretur: vigila Hennil, vigila! sic enim rustica vocabatur lingua, et epulantes ibi delicate de ejusdem se tueri custodia stulti autumabant.' And, coming to our own times, I quote from Ad. Kuhn's Märk. sagen p. 330: 'An old forester of Seeben by Salzwedel used to say, it was once the custom in these parts, on a certain day of the year, to fetch a tree out of the common-wood, and having set it up in the village, to dance round it, crying: Hennil, Hennil wache!' Can this have come out of Dietmar? and can this 'Hennil, wake!' and 'Hennil vigila!' so far back as the 11^th cent. have arisen through misunderstanding the Hung. vagyon (which means 'est,' not 'vigilat')? Anyhow, the village watchman or shepherd, who went round to all the houses, probably on a certain day of the year, carrying the staff on which was a hand holding an iron ring, and who called out those words, seems to have meant by them some divine being. A Slovak song in Kollar (Zpievanky p. 247, conf. 447) runs thus:

Hainal svitá, giz den biely,

H. shines, now day is white,

stavayte velky i maly!

arise ye great and small!

dosti sme giz dluho spali.

long enough have we now slept.
Bohemian writers try to identify this Hajnal, Heynal, Hennil with a Servian or Bohemian god of herdsmen Honidlo; (24) I know not how it may be about this god, but honidlo is neuter in form, and the name of a tool, it must have been gonidlo in Polish, and totally unconnected with eynal, heynal (see Suppl.).

We saw that the rising sun uttered a joyful sound, p. 741-2 that the rustling dawn laughed, p. 747; this agrees with the oft-repeated sentiment, that the day brings bliss, the night sorrow. We say, 'happy as the day,' and Shaksp. 'jocund day'; Reinolt von der Lippe 'er verblîde als der dag'; MS. 2, 192 of departing day, 'der tac sîn wunne verlât.' Especially do birds express their joy at the approach of day: 'gæst inne swæf oþþæt hræfn blâca heofenes wynne blîð-heort bodôde,' Beow. 3598; the heaven's bliss that the raven blithe-hearted announces is the breaking day. 'I am as glad as the hawks that dewy-faced behold the dawn (dögglitir dagsbrûn siâ),' Sæm. 167b; 'nu verðr hann svâ feginn, sem fugl degi,' Vilk. saga, cap. 39, p. 94; 'Horn was as fain o' fight as is the foule of the light when it ginneth dawe,' Horn and Rimen. 64, p. 307; 'ich warte der frouwen mîn, reht als des tages diu kleinen vogellîn,' MS. 1, 51ª; 'fröit sich mîn gemüete, sam diu kleinen vogellîn, sô si sehent den morgenschin,' MS. 2, 102b. Hence the multitude of poetic set-phrases that typify the break of day by the song of cocks (han-krât) or nightingales. Biarkamâl near the beginning: 'dagr er upp kominn, dynja hana fiaðrar,' cocks' feathers make a din. 'a la manana, quando los gallos cantaran,' Cid 317. 'lic coc cantoient, pres fu del esclairier.' 'l'aube est percie, sesclere la jornee, cil oisellon chantent en la ramee.' 'biz des morgens vruo, daz diu nahtigal rief,' En. 12545 (see Suppl.).




ENDNOTES:

20. Conf. Bon. 48, 68; and I must quote Ls. 3, 259: 'dô brach der tac dâ herfür, diu naht von dem tac wart kinent (became yawning, was split? conf. supra p. 558), diu sunne wart wol schînent.' The Gute Frau has twice (1539. 2451): 'dô der tac durch daz tach (thatch) lûhte unde brach.' We might perh. derive 'ûf brach 'from brehen, but we now say anbrechen, anbruch. [Back]

21. Rückert's Hariri 1, 375. In the Novelas of Maria de Zayas 1, 3 is a song beginning: 'si re rie el alva,' elsewhere she has 'quando el alva muestra su alegre risa;' conf. p. 502 on laughter that shakes one. The Ital. 'fare ridere una botta' is an expressive phrase for shaking a cask so that it runs over. [Back]

22. Yet conf. OHG. morgan-rôt, -rôto, and rôtâ (Graff 2, 486); MHG. ûfgênder morgenrôt (is it morgen rôt?), Walth. 4, 6; but daz morgenrôt, Trist. 8285. 9462. [Back]

23. MHG. der âbentrôt, Walth. 30, 15; but 'dô diu âbentrôt (f.) wîten ir lieht der erden bôt,' Uolrich 1488. [Back]

24. Jungmann 1, 670. 724. Hanusch pp. 369-70. [Back]